With Good Grace

by Wendy Soliman

  ‘Including you?’ she asked playfully.

  ‘I was not on the market for a wife at the time.’

  ‘Ever the diplomat, Lord Torbay,’ she replied with a wistful smile. ‘I was admired,’ she said, her expression sobering, ‘that much is true, but you must bear in mind that my portion was small. A lot of the gentlemen who engaged my interest were required to marry for money. Marcus was a safe pair of hands, I suppose, because he was associated with my eldest brother. No, I’m getting ahead of myself.’ Olivia paused, taking a moment to assemble her jumbled thoughts. Jake allowed her to do so without distracting her. ‘Hubert inherited the baronetage upon his father’s death, along with the family’s estate in Esher, close to my own family’s home. We were neighbours and socialised with the Grantleys; I had known them since my infancy. There was some money set aside for Marcus upon his father’s demise and he went into partnership with my brother Rupert in his import business.’

  ‘Go on,’ Jake encouraged when Olivia paused. He took a sip of his brandy and placed the glass aside. She could smell the liquor on his breath as it peppered her face. Would she taste it later on his lips?

  ‘The Grantley men were blessed with good looks and considerable charm. Anyone who tells you those qualities do not make a difference is deluding themselves. We are all influenced by beauty in one way or another; be it a work of art, a vista or a handsome face. Marcus knew it and traded upon the fact that nature had smiled upon him. Hubert and Marcus were great favourites in our household and my parents in particular enjoyed their company. They thought Marcus would be a steadying influence upon Rupert. My brother was not especially business-minded, you see. Anyway, that proved to be the case. I recall the years before I came out, when Marcus was constantly at our house, teasing me about how I would take the ton by storm when I was presented. I adored him; I looked upon him as another brother.’

  ‘But his feelings for you ran deeper?’

  ‘Yes. By the time I came out, Marcus had made a success of Rupert’s business and taken out his share of the profits, leaving Rupert to run it alone. I did not realise it at the time but Marcus craved risk and excitement, and had only stuck with Rupert until he made enough money to take those risks for himself.’

  ‘He became involved with theatre?’

  ‘Yes. He was acquainted with Madame Céleste, the manager of the Adelphi Theatre. He learned that she had been prevented from staging some excellent productions through lack of funding and saw an opportunity. Naturally it worked. Most of Marcus’s ideas did because he thought them through and made certain what he was getting himself into before he committed. He understood that the popularity of the theatre brought with it the need for innovative, affordable productions that would appeal to all classes of society.’

  ‘And from there he went on to represent the interests of certain actors and actresses?’

  ‘Yes. He and Hubert argued about that. Hubert is terribly self-aware and thought it demeaning for any Grantley to become embroiled with those who tread the boards.’

  ‘He failed to take into account the breakdown of social barriers.’ Jake flexed a brow. ‘Where have we encountered similar prejudices in the recent past?’

  Olivia smiled, acutely aware of Jake absently coiling and uncoiling one of her ringlets around his forefinger. ‘As a result of the Radicals’ case we now have your friend Lord Willard on the point of marrying my friend Amelia Armitage, the daughter of a middle-class merchant, for no reason other than that he adores her. And we have Armitage’s brother about to marry one of his factory worker’s daughters.’ She chuckled. ‘Poor Hubert. Perhaps knowledge of such presumption on the part of the lower classes has made him take himself off to Timbuktu.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘One can but hope.’

  ‘You were telling me about Sir Hubert’s reaction to his brother’s enterprise.’

  ‘What Hubert failed to take into account was that he had been left with a title, a large house and very little cash to run it on. It’s all very well setting oneself above the hoi polloi, until one is unable to pay the bills.’

  ‘Which is when he decided to get his own hands dirty and involve himself with Marcus’s theatrical business, I imagine.’

  ‘Yes. He and Hubert were very close, but Marcus had much the sharper brain. He refused to grant Hubert equal partnership rights, something Hubert appeared to think should be his by right. There was never any suggestion of him ploughing any capital into Marcus’s venture, mainly because he didn’t have any to spare. I supposed Marcus’s decision to exclude Hubert. It was Marcus’s money that made the enterprise a success in the first place. He was the one who took all the risks and could have lost everything. Anyway, he gave his brother work to do, using his charm to keep demanding actresses and potential investors happy, and he paid him a salary. When Marcus died I think Hubert imagined he would be able to take over everything.’

  ‘You ensured he did not.’

  ‘I owed him nothing,’ Olivia said, wishing that she didn’t sound so defensive. ‘He did nothing to help me in my hour of need. Had it not been for you then I…’ Her voice caught but the reassuring pressure of Jake’s long fingers caressing the back of her neck gave her the strength to continue. ‘Anyway, Marcus’s lawyers knew of a person who would be interested in purchasing his business and I sold it to Mr Barber. Hubert and I have not seen or spoken to one another since that day, shortly after my acquittal, when he came to me in our house in Belgravia, seeming to think he could step into Marcus’s shoes—in all respects.’

  ‘I think we would be best served if we allowed the blaggard to remain lost,’ Jake said in a disgruntled tone. ‘And I would do so, but for the fact that your late husband obviously owned something that someone will go to any lengths to get their hands on. I don’t wish to alarm you, my dear, but it stands to reason that they will eventually try and look for it here.’

  ‘They are certainly welcome to try!’ she replied belligerently.

  ‘What went wrong between you and Marcus, if it is not an indelicate question? You obviously married him because you were comfortable with his society and because he had the good sense to want you, not minding about your lack of dowry.’

  ‘Actually, considerable pressure was put on me to marry him,’ Olivia replied. ‘I liked him well enough but he was more than ten years my senior and I had never thought of him as husband material. Besides, I had grown attached to the idea of marrying for love.’ She gave a wistful little sigh, thinking how disobliging it had been of Jake not to have been on the prowl for a wife at the time. She had noticed him immediately, despite the excitement and confusion of a first season, in the midst of all those well-heeled gentlemen and had felt a connection to him even then. ‘However, my first season was almost at an end, and no other eligible offers had been forthcoming. My mother and brothers said I was in danger of being left on the shelf.’ Jake made a scoffing sound at the back of his throat. ‘Anyway, they wore me down and so I did what my family wanted me to do.’

  ‘And yet you were not happy?’

  ‘For the first few months it was a novelty and I thought I would be content. But it soon became apparent that Marcus was incapable of fidelity. It is a family trait. Hubert is similarly afflicted. Margaret is willing to turn a blind eye, provided he is discreet. I was not, and challenged Marcus when he came home in the early hours reeking of cheap perfume.’ She sighed. ‘He hit me for the first time when we had been married for less than a year. Then he repeatedly raped me, telling me to do as I was told and never question his activities again.’

  ‘The bastard!’ Jake’s face was puce with rage. ‘I would like to bring him alive again, just so that I could have the satisfaction of killing him myself.’

  Olivia touched Jake’s hand, reassured by his anger. ‘He clearly did not understand the character of the lady he had married,’ she said. ‘It is not in my nature to be passive and not ask questions. And I am nothing like Margaret, who only cares about appearances.’

  ‘That is c
ertainly true.’ Jake touched her face; an intimate gesture that rendered words of reassurance unnecessary. ‘No wonder you were so anxious to help Eva avoid returning to her brutal husband. If I had realised how similar your own past was to hers then I never would have asked you to become involved.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Olivia flapped a hand is casual dismissal of Jake’s concerns. ‘Eva and I were both married to men who sought to control us; that much is true. But my character is very different from Eva’s. Eva was prepared to endure her lot but after Marcus behaved worse than an animal, I lost all respect for the handsome charmer I had married. I was not about to be violated by him for a second time.’ Olivia closed her eyes, threw back her head and emitted a prolonged sigh. ‘Marcus did not treat me as a possession, or attempt to control my activities; I will say that much for him. Nor did he care whom I consorted with, just so long as I was to hand if he needed me at his side to lend respectability to his activities. Even so, I did not trust him not to hurt me again and so I engaged a private tutor to teach me how to defend myself against a stronger male opponent.’

  ‘Ah, I have often wondered how you came by that particular skill,’ Jake replied with the ghost of a smile. ‘After teaching you the rudiments of fencing, and how to shoot straight, I suggested, if you recall, that lessons in hand-to-hand combat might be beneficial.’

  Olivia chuckled. ‘At which point I landed you on your backside. I never did apologise for that.’

  ‘You were too busy laughing, if memory serves.’

  ‘Well anyway, suffice it to say that the next time Marcus attempted to force himself upon me whilst in a drunken stupor, he realised that he had badly miscalculated the extent of my unwillingness to entertain him. We reached an agreement at that point, and led more or less separate lives. Even so, Marcus badly wanted a son and I could not ignore my duty in that regard. And so he visited my room at regular intervals and I have the blessing of Tom to show for those unpleasant but mercifully brief couplings.’ Olivia’s smile was wide and uncontrived. ‘My son is the one good thing to come out of my unhappy marriage.’

  ‘And a credit to you.’

  Olivia chuckled. ‘Most of the time.’

  ‘You lived in Belgravia.’ Olivia nodded. ‘Sir Hubert does not have a town house?’

  ‘Not of his own, but he used ours as if it was his. I swear he and Margaret spent more time beneath our roof than they did their own. Even after I disabused him of the idea that he could take over Marcus’s business, he seemed to think he and Margaret would be welcome in Belgravia.’

  ‘Astonishing,’ Jake said, shaking his head.

  ‘He soon realised that he had mistaken the matter,’ Olivia said with asperity. ‘I sold the house and moved here. I didn’t need that barn of a place and wanted to be somewhere quieter and less fashionable.’ She exhaled slowly. ‘Anyway, going back to my marriage, I became quite ill when I realised I was carrying Tom and Marcus had the decency to leave me alone after that. He did not return to my bedroom after the birth and I made no further mention of his affairs. If other women meant he would leave me to enjoy my child then I would not risk making waves and angering him. I suppose you could say that in some respects I started to understand why Margaret behaved in the way that she did; allowing Hubert to act as he pleased. The Grantley men were accustomed to having their way in everything, and did not take kindly to being told what to do.’

  ‘Why did you argue on the night he was killed?’

  ‘We had all been to the first night of one of his productions. I could see at once that he had more than a business interest in the leading lady, but that did not bother me. There was a party afterwards but we left early and a group of us went back to the house in Belgravia.’ Olivia closed her eyes for an expressive moment. ‘I went upstairs at one point when we returned home after the performance and found Marcus and the lady in question in flagrante delicto in my bed. I saw red, ordered her out of the house and Marcus was furious with me!’ Olivia huffed indignantly. ‘He said others were trying to persuade the woman…you will know her name. She is now very famous. Verity Aspin.’

  Jake nodded. ‘I saw her perform in Twelfth Night a year or so ago. She is an accomplished actress.’

  ‘And not a nice person; take it from me. Anyway, I was incensed because Marcus had gone too far this time. Carrying on discretely was one thing, but we had a houseful of guests, all of whom had seen them ascend the stairs together. The disrespect was beyond insulting, but all Marcus cared about was losing Miss Aspin to another agent which, he told me, would mean a considerable loss of income.’

  ‘Where Aspin went, others followed?’

  ‘That is what Marcus said. Miss Aspin did not leave the house, of course. She remained in the room, repairing her hair and listening to Marcus defend her against me. She never liked me, you see because—’

  ‘Because you are more beautiful than she is and women of that ilk must always be the centre of attention.’

  Olivia shrugged. ‘Perhaps. I have always thought it was she who had insisted upon using my bed. She had a point to make, you see. She wanted a confrontation and for Marcus to take her side. Well, she got her wish and Marcus returned downstairs with Miss Aspin on his arm as though nothing untoward had happened. I saw all the pitying glances being sent my way, something inside of me snapped and I knew I couldn’t live like that anymore. Deep down I also know I should have waited until the following day, when we were alone, to tell him how I felt but…well, you know how fiery I can be when I am aggrieved and I simply couldn’t hold it all in. Marcus was outside, or I thought he was. When I went to look for him I found him on the floor in a pool of blood, dying and…well, you know the rest.’

  Jake leaned in and gently covered her lips with his own.

  ‘Thank you for telling me. I know it cannot have been easy for you.’

  Olivia rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. ‘Do you imagine that whatever is being looked for has to do with Verity Aspin? I would not put anything past her. She has more skeletons in her cupboard than they have in the local graveyard.’

  ‘Tomorrow we shall look together through your husband’s records, if you still have them, to see whom he represented at the time.’

  ‘Yes, there are still some boxes but I have not looked at them. All the up to date records were in the office that Mr Barber took over, but anything personal will be boxed up in the attic here. I will have Green bring those boxes down.’

  ‘I shall also have to speak with Margaret.’

  ‘I do not envy you that,’ Olivia replied, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘I live to serve,’ he replied with a wry smile.

  To Olivia’s intense disappoint he stood and she knew he was going to leave her. ‘Must you go?’ she asked.

  ‘I cannot spend the night with you here, Olivia, much as I would like to. It is easier when you are at my house. A larger establishment, discreet servants. Molly was almost shocked into giving notice when she realised I had been with you in your room at Grosvenor Square.’

  ‘Hang Molly! She is stepping out with a young curate and is now very morally upright but if her attitude does not improve I shall dismiss her myself.’

  Jake groaned. ‘Don’t tempt me, my love. Why do you think I have stayed away from you? I cannot bear to be near you and not with you. I am simply not that strong.’

  Olivia’s heart soared. In spite of the fact that he now knew all her sordid secrets, he did not seem deterred. ‘I am a widow. The rules don’t apply to me.’

  Jake sent her a scorching smile. ‘We both know that is not precisely true.’

  ‘Then we had best find my wretched brother-in-law and discover whatever it is that has caused two men to be brutally murdered, because I fully intend to take you up on your invitation to spend the summer with you in Torbay.’

  ‘When we reach the seclusion of Torbay we will be at leisure to please ourselves.’ He pulled her into his arms and kissed her—far too briefly—before releasing her again. ‘I shall
call upon you again in the morning,’ he said as he released her and turned towards the door.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Parker,’ Jake said, when his butler-cum-valet-cum-confidante and right-hand man entered his bedchamber the following morning and pulled back the curtains, ‘Mrs Grantley is in need of our help.’

  ‘What’s happened now?’ Parker asked with his usual lack of deference as he arranged Jake’s shaving water.

  What indeed? As Parker shaved him, Jake spoke when he felt it least likely his throat would be accidently cut if he moved.

  ‘I shall go round to Cheyne Walk this morning and look through her husband’s records to see if they lend any clues,’ he said when he had explained the entire situation. ‘I’d like you to call on Barber in The Strand, the man who purchased Grantley’s business. See if anything went missing in the burglary.’

  ‘What reason do I have to question him?’

  ‘Tell him you are employed by the Grantley family. Don’t say which member of it. See if all of Grantley’s clients have remained with Barber. Oh, and see if you can find out if he’s had any dealings with Hubert Grantley.’ Jake paused, in the process of tying his four-in-hand necktie. ‘I’ll wager Sir Hubert is short of cash and has probably tried either to coax some of his brother’s former clients away from Barber, promising to offer them a higher class of representation himself, or else he has endeavoured to inveigle himself into Barber’s agency, claiming perhaps to know of all his clients’ foibles.’

  ‘Good way to get himself killed,’ Parker said casually. ‘There’s money to be made from the theatre nowadays and it seems Mrs Grantley’s husband realised it before most. Still, I hear there’s any number of agents nowadays, trying to take over the business interests of up and coming actors.’ Parker frowned. ‘You’re thinking that Sir Hubert is dead, I presume.’

  ‘I’m not sure what to think yet.’ Jake slid his arms into the coat that Parker held out for him. ‘Other than that I don’t like him.’